walnut butter cake

Once you have got hold of a good butter cake recipe, the world is your oyster! You can make variations of the butter cake and they all taste delicious.

This is my version of walnut butter cake. Enjoy!

I baked the cake when I got home from work one night, left the cake to cool overnight and brought the whole cake to the office for my secretary to slice and share with my colleagues.

INGREDIENTS

250g self-raising flour (sifted)
250g butter (softened)
230g castor sugar
4 eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts
2 tsp vanilla essence
6 tbsp milk

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

2. Grease and flour an 8" round cake pan. Set aside.

3. Sift the self-raising flour in a bowl. Set aside.

4. Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl using an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

5. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well with each addition.

6. Add the chopped walnuts and vanilla essence and mix well.

7. Fold in the flour using a wooden spatula and stir until just blended.

8. Add the milk and check that the batter has a dropping consistency.

9. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

TIPS

1. When I baked this cake, I had not yet bought an aluminium 8" round cake pan. As I used disposable cake pans, I had to use two 8" round cake pans as the disposable cake pans tend to be lower in height. Whether you prefer to bake two lower cakes or one higher cake, the important thing is that the batter should not be higher than half the level of the height of the cake pan.

2. There are various ways to chop the walnuts:-

(a) using a rolling pin;

(b) using a knife;

(c) using a pair of scissors; or

(d) using a pestle and mortar.

I would advise that you do not chop the walnuts in an electric chopper as the walnuts would tend to become too fine and you would not get the crunchy bits of walnut that give the extra "oomph" when you bite into a slice of the cake.